When a college president announces his or her retirement, students, faculty, and administrators can expect a considerable amount of fanfare on campus that will send the president off in style. But when Emerson College’s President Jacqueline Liebergott announced her retirement yesterday, no one could truly predict the excitement that would lead up to the announcement…and continue well after.

Late yesterday morning in Boston, Emerson students received a rather cryptic email from President Liebergott, urging them all to come to gather at the Semel Theatre on campus for an important announcement. Rather than wait around for the announcement, some students hopped on Twitter and began tweeting about what the news might entail. The tweets ranged from funny to absurd—including talk of an Emerson Space Station and the notion of free tuition.

Inspired by the tweets, as well as the Victoria’s Secret fashion show that she watched the night before with her roommates, Laura Kinson, a junior Marketing Communications major, decided to take the tweeting one step further and create a hashtag–#jackiessecret. A hashtag is a handy way of keeping track of topics on Twitter. (And if you don’t know what Twitter is, you are welcome to emerge from under your rock at this time.)

According to Kinson, President Liebergott is not a big fan of her students calling her by her first name. But she took the risk—it did have a better ring to it than #ecbignews, anyway—and decided to apply some of the concepts that she learned in her Social Media class. Within 20 minutes, Emerson’s big news became big news on Twitter.

“Honestly, I had no idea it would explode like it did,” says Kinson. She teamed up with fellow Emersonian Matt Karolian, who brought his trusty laptop to the gathering and broadcasted a live feed of President Liebergott’s announcement. Both tweeted throughout the entire event as well.

After Liebergott’s announcement, one would think that the hubbub would have subsided. But not at Emerson, whose reputation remains true to its tagline: “Bringing innovation to communications and the performing arts.” Kinson and Karolian watched in awe as the Twittersphere continued to explode with #jackiessecret tweets, which now speculated who would take over the vacancy in the fall of 2011. Suggestions ranged from Dulcia Meijers, a popular professor at Emerson; to Kevin Bright, one of the producers and creators of “Friends” and one of Emerson’s most famous alumni; to the rather inexplicable choice of Grammy-nominated singer Lady Gaga.

“I think the most impressive part of #jackiessecret was the mobilization of the student body because of it,” says Kinson. “At the meeting, at least 50 percent of the 120 attendees were students. Without Twitter, I really think there would have been maybe 10 kids who would have shown up.”

Aside from the outrageous guesses at Dr. Liebergott’s replacement, the #jackiessecret tweets also praised the president’s hard work and dedication to the school. As a proud graduate alumna of Emerson (MFA in Creative Writing, baby!), I jumped on the bandwagon and added the hashtag to my tweets as soon as I found out what was happening. As of late last night, Kinson said that there were around 1,406 tweets from 306 users—she topped the list with 95 tweets.

Twitter users are familiar with “Tweetups,” which are social gatherings of Twitter users, allowing them the opportunity to meet each other in the real world. Karolian has set up a #jackiessecret Tweetup for this Friday night in Beantown. Emerson’s Boston campus is a small urban one on the corner of the Boston Common, and Kinson says that the students shared a bonding experience thanks to their tweets.

“I am so excited that Twitter has brought a sense of community to Emerson, because with the whole lack of a physical campus, it’s hard to come by sometimes,” Kinson says.

I think President Liebergott can forgive the Emerson students for calling her “Jackie” this one time. And some slick marketing firm needs to snap up these two young social media gurus right after they graduate.

–Barbara Bellesi